On the twelfth day of Labyrinths… and the first day of Christmas, there seems a noble twist with very little left on my list. Only the concept of travel, a curious new labyrinth and the importance of an ex comes together on this last of the game of 12 days.

It was indeed quite a task to come to an ending for this last day. Perhaps I just didn’t want it to close and maybe in between the eve and the after walks of Christmas, there was a richness of thought and feeling. In a short couple of weeks I journey back home, so there is much that comes to mind and heart and the closer to closure, the more uncertain certainty becomes.

I had planned to walk the labyrinth located out at a nursery on the outskirts of town, though found with the holidays that their schedule of availability diminished and wasn’t at all sure if they would be open based on a few mixed messages. I had thought to end the year and the game with the idea of growing and a garden center seemed the ideal place to plant some seeds and nurture ideas. The unsettled feeling of their hours of availability had me seeking alternatives to this idea.

As I asked the question of what labyrinth, my eyes landed on a foam core board and the vision labyrinth of one of the workshop participants from the week before. We had the opportunity to meet days after the visioning workshop, and one young man who had been impressed came up to me with a gift of an internationalized word labyrinth. A simple three circuit design where he cut out words from magazines and pasted them as the borders.

He wanted me to have it and was going to make another because he was so inspired. I hadn’t realized how metaphoric it was until I sat down and moved my fingers around on it. I stopped every so often and my fingers pointed to a word or landed on an expression that spoke volumes. I began to realize how many things came together to form an idea and marveled at how it all related.

The only problem was that this labyrinth was only three circuit and was short and my thoughts wanted to travel. While I enjoyed this experience I began to realize that maybe some automatic writing might help and so I opted to utilize an idea I developed for retreats. I drew out a classical design and put my pen down at the beginning and began to write moving inward spiraling and turning my hand until I reached the center where the writing gave way to realization and instead of the reflection of 2014, I was projecting ideas for 2015.

The reflective return writing led me to consider the travel I had in two month increments throughout the year, the places and purposes of the experiences and the metaphors of it all. This gave me enough time to consider the three elements of this walk and whether to use the first design or use the writing labyrinth design.

As the idea of travel was still present I ended up using a third labyrinth where the words became the path full of the intentions for projects, places and connections of 2015. So much was coming up that I wanted to find a way to record it memorably and in this way I could move my intentions forward with a simple regular finger walk, just like the vision board idea earlier. All found its way onto a page that happily created a great way to take all the thoughts that were filling my mind and transcribe them to a visual expression.

What I realized was that I moved on three labyrinths today with the idea of travel, had opportunity for creative design and used the strengths and positive influence of my ex husband. We parted with graceful understanding so it is natural that he would have been a part of my year, even though we saw each other less in this year than in any year previous.

When I felt many messages with three labyrinths, I knew he would put his head down and forge ahead one foot in front of the other to come to a natural ending point or conclusion. When I had much to say and used the writing labyrinth, I remembered that the labyrinth could be a good listener like he was and absorb the conversation, knowing I only required a sounding board. The final labyrinth illustrated a way to simply create a list that put a little fun in the functional way it could be used and while this was not at all like my ex, it did remind me of the personal choices I made and my mission in all more purposefully.

In many ways these 12 days have been playful and creative, a game like experience in seeking out and exploring to educate, and a great reflection of appreciation of the year past with a few glimpses into the year ahead.

My focus for today had been traveling, with creativity and innovation as my ability and my ex as a person of influence. What I realize from this trio of labyrinths is that I did some traveling on different paths that held different answers for different questions. I remembered and developed different paths creatively and used the strengths of someone of influence to me to bring perspective with purpose more fruitfully.

Just when I began to feel as if I had missed the bigger picture, it displayed itself in varied form using three labyrinths with three perspectives each unfolding to one purpose.

On this day of closure, I am satisfied with the experiences and know that each was a lesson of purpose just like this game was intended.